The UK Home Office has organized mental health workshops for border officers to assist them in managing the stress arising from the small boats crisis. Recent spending data released by the Home Office reveals the engagement of “resilience practitioners,” mental health professionals, to provide support for UK Border Force personnel engaged in addressing the challenges posed by small boats.
Conducted this spring in Folkestone, Kent, where small boat arrivals of asylum seekers are frequent, the sessions aimed to address the mental well-being of officers grappling with the crisis. A “humanitarian crisis” characterization was attributed to the situation by one of the resilience practitioners in social media posts reviewed by The Guardian. Their workshops often encompassed aspects of “positive psychology and cognitive behavioral theory,” as mentioned on their website.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents government workers, indicated that these workshops followed trauma assessments conducted by trained officers on staff who experienced potentially traumatic critical incidents. Such assessments were extended to individuals involved in an incident last October when an immigration center in Dover was targeted with a petrol bomb.
The Home Office’s allocation for these workshops for staff engaged in “small boats activity” during the current year has amounted to £7,696.
PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, welcomed the provision of workshops as a support measure for Border Force members, yet voiced a preference for the government to prevent such situations from arising in the first place. He called for a shift towards endorsing “safe passage,” which represents a more humane approach to addressing the challenges presented by small boat arrivals in the Channel, as opposed to the government’s illegal migration bill.
The recent passage of the illegal migration bill by the government grants the Home Office the authority to transfer asylum seekers arriving via small boats to Rwanda. This legislative move followed the government’s “small boats week,” during which the Bibby Stockholm barge was employed to house asylum seekers. However, this initiative ended abruptly due to the discovery of legionella onboard, leading to the evacuation of its occupants.
In the wake of these events, the drowning of six asylum seekers during a Channel crossing attempt highlighted the ongoing dangers. Two British vessels participated in the subsequent search and rescue operation.
A spokesperson from the Home Office emphasized the institution’s commitment to the welfare of staff operating in demanding environments. The spokesperson underscored the rigorous scrutiny of expenditures to ensure the optimal utilization of taxpayers’ funds.
